


DeAged Tony

by DigDipper



Category: The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Age Regression/De-Aging, Changing POVs, De-Aged Tony Stark, Gen, He doesn't know it yet though, Howard Stark's A+ Parenting, Kid Tony Stark, Light Angst, Not Wanda Friendly, Not very happy beginning, Probably I don't know yet, Tony Stark Needs a Hug, Tony doesn't talk a lot, Tony thinks too much, Tony's had a terrible childhood, Unreliable Narrator, not team Cap friendly
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-07-22
Updated: 2018-07-22
Packaged: 2019-06-14 15:13:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,259
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15391539
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DigDipper/pseuds/DigDipper
Summary: Anthony wakes up in a Wakandan hospital.I have no idea what else to say. It's a DeAged Tony thing. In Wakanda.





	DeAged Tony

**Author's Note:**

> So this is my DeAged Tony thing I posted on my tumblr, made into an actual fic attempt. I've changed some things. I also decided to separate what's going to be the happy part of DeAged Tony thing because the angsty part was getting very long. It's still probably going to be shorter compared to the fluffy part, since this is supposed to be the 'beginning'. I guess a prologue? I'm going to try not to be too harsh on Team Cap, because even if (I believe) they don't like/care for Tony Stark very much they're probably not going to be that mean to a child. I'm also probably not going to give that to Wanda though. I do *not* like her.

Anthony didn’t really know what to make of his current situation. 

He had woken up not knowing pretty much anything. The first thought that crossed his mind when he’d first opened his eyes was; _This isn’t my room_. He didn’t remember whether or not he went to sleep the night before in his dorm room, or whether he was back at the mansion, or really, anything from ‘before’. 

His surroundings hadn’t really helped either. The tall metal bed he found himself in felt very medical, but the soft-colored walls, curtains, and lights all reminded him of the expensive hotel room he and his mother had once stayed in London. The several screens that surrounded the head of his bed were reminiscent of alien probe scenes, but thankfully none of the machines had been connected to him directly. 

_It’s different from the movies_ , Anthony thought next. The hospital rooms on the big screens always had someone other than the person in the bed. Someone who cared, who was sad. The room he had woken up in had three comfy looking chairs. _One for Anna, one for Aunt Peggy, and one for Jarvis, near me, to hold my hand,_ he imagined. Perhaps he’d woken up too early for them to arrive and ruined the entire scene. It was a more likely scenario than all three of them to just… not come. He hoped, he really, really hoped that was it. 

Anthony then finally notices the people talking outside of his door. Or rather, he amends, arguing. Their voices are muffled quite a bit, but by the raised tones he can tell they are angry. Perhaps Jarvis, Anna and Aunt Peggy did not, in fact, come to get him. Perhaps it was his father, this time. Maybe his mother as well. The thought brings a tentative smile to his lips, although the thought of his father angry still scares him a little. Perhaps Anthony had gotten into an accident, and his parents were so worried that they came to see him. Perhaps they'd been very worried, and that was what was making his father so angry, just like Jarvis had said. 

The voices outside die down however, and still nobody opens the door. Anthony strains to hear more, but either he is too far away from the door or the door itself is too thick. A jolt of panic goes through his body as he imagines his parents walking away. There's little hesitation for him to climb out of the bed, nor does he take time to look around for his shoes to protect his feet from the ice-cold floor. His thoughts are a frenzy of what ifs - What if, what if, his parents only had the time to come see him for a couple of minutes and they spent it all arguing with the doctors? What if, what if, they thought it was too much of a hassle to try to get inside the room and just decided, that- that he wasn't worth it? What if- what if they were giving him away? More permanently than sending him to the boarding school, what if they just didn't want him anymore? What if this was his last chance?

He wrenches open the door, panic flooding his chest with big gasps, and runs out into the hallway. It was also very brightly lit, with giant panels of windows that displayed the beautiful jungle of trees outside, but Anthony didn't have the spare moment to appreciate the view. Where were his parents? To one end of the corridor to the other, there was no one. _I missed them_.

"Hayi!"

No one but the two Black women in red with - honest to god - spears that were stationed next to his door, apparently. They seemed surprised, but quickly moving to grab him, so he dodged and ran.  _Or, I've been kidnapped._

* * *

 

The chase didn't last long. 

The women in red - there were more than just the two at his door, it seemed - were well-organized, and apparently everywhere. Anthony had barely turned two corners before he was unceremoniously lifted off the ground. He'd thrashed, of course, to the best of his abilities, but the woman had both his arms pinned to his chest in a matter of seconds, and his legs were too short to do any real damage. He quickly found himself back at the same room he'd woken up in, alone once again. But he now knew that his door was now watched, by obviously very capable women, probably in shifts by the number (at least three). It didn't really help with his escape, but he at least now knew what to expect when going out of the room. The corridor just outside his door was long, but thankfully his room had been situated nearer to one end than the other, and he had been very close to what seemed to be an emergency exit just before he was recaptured. 

_If I'd been faster, if I'd been smarter, I could have been outside and yelled for help._

The thought of his failures was bitter and choking. What use were Aunt Peggy's tactical escape training if he couldn't even execute it properly? He punched down on his thighs. It hurt, but he deserved it. Now he'll know to do better. 

The door opened again, after a soft knock. Anthony didn't bother to get up. _They'll expect it now_ , he could almost hear Aunt Peggy say, You'll have to  _wait for them to lower their guard again_. He wishes he could ask her how long that would take. _You're a genius, you should be able to figure it out_ , his classmates would say. 

It was a Black man, followed by a different Black woman in red. Anthony was seeing a pattern now, something that slowly started to form a heavy weight in his belly. The man was tall and broad, with curly hair and curly beard and a very expensive looking robe. He looked like a general, or a prince, someone that he could imagine talking with his father in important meetings. The woman on the other hand had no hair. On further thought, he remembered that none of the women in red had hair. Uniforms then, he imagined. Which meant it was organized, like a factory, or more likely, like the military or the police. Or like henchmen from his comics. 

His hand automatically hit his head for thinking such a stupid thought, and it seemed to have startled the two adults. Anthony tried to pass it off as thought he had been trying to catch a fly on his face. Adults usually didn't like to see him punish himself. _Best kept behind doors_ , as some of his father's guests would say. 

"Tony Stark?" The Black man said to him as he sat down on the chair beside his bed. "Do you know who I am?"

The man was oddly being familiar with the kidnapped-ee, with him shortening Anthony's name like that. Not to mention, actual kidnappers don't really want Anthony to know their faces or names, usually. Perhaps this was not a kidnapping after all? But when seconds passed by without more information, he kept his mouth shut and shook his head.

The man paused, then looked at the woman, who looked at him back. The man spoke again to Anthony, "My name is T'Challa, I am... an associate of your father's."

_As expected._ He nodded. He must have had to have known his father, in some kind of business deal that didn't end too well, to have resorted to kidnapping Anthony.

"This is Okoye, she is my bodyguard." Mr. T'Challa introduced the lady besides himself, who nodded at him but didn't try to shake his hand. "Do you know where you are? Do you remember the last thing you did before waking up?" _This is different_ , thought Anthony, bemused. 

"I was sleeping, before waking up." he couldn't help but say, even though Anthony imagined he would regret the sass. 

Instead the man - Mr. T'Challa - huffed a small laugh, as did the woman. Anthony relaxed; maybe they weren't so bad, after all... _for kidnappers_ , he reminded himself with a small shake of the head. _Focus, idiot! Don't get comfortable!_

Mr. T'Challa looked at him oddly for it - _stupid, stupid, stupid_ \- but instead asked: "I meant before your sleep, young man."

Anthony shook his head again. _No point in hiding something I don't even know_. 

Mr. T'Challa nodded. "You and your father had come to Wakanda for a business trip, but unfortunately something rather urgent and confidential had come up with the US Military, it seems. Your father has entrusted me with your care for the time being, until the moment he could come bring you back home. We had dinner together yesterday, do you remember that?"

Anthony was more confused than ever before. Half of what Mr. T'Challa said sounded like a lie, while the other half sounded pretty real. On one hand, his father, Howard Stark, bring little useless Anthony Stark to a very important business trip? Inconceivable. And while Anthony wasn't as well-versed to his geography of African-Middle Eastern area where he assumes it is located, but he was pretty sure that 'Wakanda' was not one of the countries he remembered from his textbooks. On the other hand, it did sound like his father to have left him in the care of this stranger with an army of women in red to 'keep him in check'. Maybe he'd done something incredibly rude the night before at dinner with Mr. T'Challa, and this was his punishment. He shook his head no.

Mr. T'Challa smiled kindly. "Ah, that is a shame. Especially now that I will be even more busy with my work that I'm afraid we won't be meeting very often anymore." 

Anthony didn't really have anything to say to that, so he nodded instead. 

Mr. T'Challa seemed to have wanted something more as he kept quiet for several moments, but when Anthony didn't do anything, he sighed. Anthony winced internally.  _Disappointment_.

Mr. T'Challa rose back up, looking to Ms. Okoye, who moved to open the door for him.

"Well then. I have made some arrangement for your temporary stay away near the hospital. As comfortable as we make our hospital rooms, it is no place to keep a child for more than the necessary span of time." He gave out a hand to Anthony. He shook it. Mr. T'Challa laughed, and instead picked Anthony up to put him on the ground. "Let's go," he said, and took Anthony's hand again and led him out.

* * *

 

The two guards that had been just outside of his room were gone, and nobody but the occasional people in lab coats came across them for the entire walk through the hospital as they left. It was a short distance from the hospital by car, but it was still quite a ways away that would have made the journey rather uncomfortable for Anthony had they traveled by foot.

Mr. T'Challa had picked him up halfway to the building from the car, finally remembering he only had his hospital scrubs and nothing else. It was a large building, an annex to the hospital he had just been in, where Mr. T'Challa said that recovering patients and their families could stay long term without cramming themselves into one small hospital room. Mr. T'Challa however did not say what Anthony was doing at the hospital to begin with. Or why he had to stay near the hospital. 

The annex was also practically empty, for a hospital building. Anthony only saw three other people on his way to his 'suite', and one of them had been another woman in red. The building was shaped like a bi cylinder, with fancy designs and lots of trees. There were indoor gardens and plenty of wide open windows, and even a small waterfall. 

His 'suite' felt more homely than any hotel rooms he'd been to. Mr. T'Challa kept talking about his father, how he'd return home soon, and if his father took more time than expected he'd assign a private tutor for Anthony so he wouldn't be missing out on education. Anthony did not speak up about how it would be fine to just put him on a plane back to his boarding school, how his father wouldn't care or really remember the details about his stay. He also didn't say how he wanted to go back home alone rather than to stay and wait for his father to pick him up.

His eyes were glued to the large expanse of field and jungle beyond the living room of his suite, on the other side of the floor-to-ceiling windows. The trees seemed to grow in and out of the buildings around them. There were numerous waterfalls that made little rainbows in the air, falling from the side of buildings. There were birds' nests everywhere, with many a colorful birds flying around the city, treating a protrusion of a building the same as a branch of a tree. Just above the city limit he could see little huts and fenced-off fields, where he could see rhinoceroses - great, big rhinos with shining metal on their horns! - being herded and pet by whom he supposed were the rhino farmers, who also held holographic tablets and projecting something with simple gestures. 

Anthony remembered the idea of utopia, that his class discussed after reading 1984. He thought that maybe, if it were ever a real possibility, that this might be it. 

**Author's Note:**

> So a lot of this have a lot of my own head canons implied in context:
> 
> \- Tony is probably aged somewhere in the ballpark of 8 and 9. It's not specified because magic, and so his memories are a bit jumbled up.   
> \- Tony is emotionally and physically abused a lot by his father, and bullied by pretty much everyone. He's gotten used to thinking 'if I get hurt I probably deserved it' (and also inversely 'if I do something wrong I have to be hurt') kind of mentality, and we'll probably be seeing more of that to come.   
> \- Tony is quiet for the same reason as above; His father didn't care for his opinion and his mother (sorry Maria) once said in passing that 'Children are Best Seen and Not Heard' and Tony took it to heart.   
> \- Tony tries to be well-mannered, because Mom and Jarvis and Aunt Peggy all really wanted him to be it.   
> \- Tony has already been kidnapped several times before, and has also gotten himself out of the situation. It is the first time he's been on an entirely different area however. He's always been in New York in his previous kidnappings.   
> \- Tony knows about JJ Bittenbinder's Street Smarts - or some variation of it. He is pretty much prepared to die at this point because this is a 'Secondary Location', if this was a kidnapping. He's really hoping it's not and T'Challa is speaking something similar to the truth than not.


End file.
